Miami FC Set to Announce FIU Stadium as Home Venue

The NASL expansion franchise is set to announce this Wednesday that the club will play home matches at Florida International University Stadium for its inaugural season. The venue is located on the campus of FIU and is less than a half hour car ride away from downtown Miami.

Team manager Alessandro Nesta, co-owner Riccardo Silva and FIU President Mark Rosenberg will make the announcement from the FIU grounds.

FIU Stadium opened in 1995 and after several rounds of expansion can now seat a crowd of over 20,000. That capacity puts them third in NASL behind Ottawa’s TD Place (24k) and the Strikers’ Lockhart Stadium (20,450). The next closest venues would be the New York Cosmos home Shuart Stadium (12k) and Indy Eleven’s Maichael Carroll Stadium (10.5k).

The stadium is no stranger to soccer. Before the current incarnation of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers re-branded, they were also known as Miami FC and hosted some of their games at FIU from 2007 to 2009. FIU was also one of the host stadiums for the 2009 and 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cups.

The surface at FIU Stadium is FieldTurf, making Miami FC the sixth club in the NASL to play on artificial surface.

Miami FC will begin play in the Spring Season of the 2016 NASL Season. Italian national team legends Pablo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta will be leading the upstart club as co-owner and head coach respectively. Sport Media entrepreneur Riccardo Silva holds the role of club president.

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Will the team even have fans :)
The only way NASL survives if its the league finds owners from all over the world to put a farm team or b team in NASL.

amerisnob

NASL is the only league to not ever have a farm team.

Meanwhile MLS has had Chivas USA and now recently Chivas-for-White-People FC, and USL is basically MLS’s reserve league now. It’s only a matter of time before the likes of Sacramento, Rochester and Charleston try to find a way out of that miserable arrangement.

slowleftarm

Guess you missed the announcement that Celtic wants an NASL farm team.

amerisnob

Let them try. I will hate them just as I hate all other farm teams masquerading as some independent team (and don’t think I forgot about corporate branding extensions like the one on the other side of the river).

But I think the criticism that NASL depends or will depend on farm teams is unfair, considering they literally never had one before.

slowleftarm

Yes but I think that’s because no one has had any interest in starting one before Celtic. NASL will be falling all over itself to welcome a Celtic owned team into the league. Then you’ll have to find some other angle to attack MLS.

Jason

Right, Charleston wants out. Based on what?

Rochester wants out. Based on what?

Sacramento wants out. Based on what?

God, you’re an idiot.

amerisnob

“It’s only a matter of time before…”

C-. Reread and resubmit.

slowleftarm

The way out teams like Sacramento want is into MLS, not NASL.

Rui

I like that ” for white people”

DanGerman

See the last team named Miami FC to play in FIU attendance record and now add the Strikers into the equation and the possible impending Miami MLS team with its own stadium you’ll understand why I think this was a terrible idea by the NASL.

slowleftarm

Yeah, NASL would be better off focusing on markets without soccer rather than trying to move in on MLS markets. There’s only going to be one winner in a NASL v. MLS turf battle.

You may not realize it but repeating the same inanities over and over doesn’t make them any more true.

ty

How do you figure this? MLS fans are the most delusional fans ever. I watch footy because i love it. I also love my club the Cosmos regardless of what division they’re in. MLS fans think that their league is actually successful based on what? Terrible TV ratings behind WNBA and a horrible product . Garber even said the teams are LOOSING money. You’re number 3 behind EPL and Liga MX. Mickey Mouse footy. Miami in the MLS could not find a stadium. sound familiar? Since you don’t have a proper TV deal or and Ideal stadium atmospheres we are all in the same boat. NYFC has no stadium and retard hipsters accept mediocrity as if Yankee stadium is some sort of achievement it looks like CRAP. When Miami of the MLS and NYFC score proper footy stadium. Talk crap then. I don’t see that happeing

slowleftarm

Look, most of what you write is nonsense but even if it were true, how is NASL doing any better? For instance you mock the $90m a year TV deal MLS has yet and MLS’s TV ratings but NASL games are not even on TV. You mock NYCFC’s stadium and that’s fair enough but your boys play in a college lacrosse stadium in Hempstead.

You’re probably too young to remember this but 20 years ago we didn’t a professional soccer league in this country. The idea we’d have a 20 team league in 2015 playing in mostly SSS with attendance at 21k+ per game and $90m a year in tv revenues would have seemed pretty laughable. So by any reasonable measure MLS is a resounding success.

ty

You fail to realize that NYFC will never get a proper footy stadium. The freaking Brooklyn Dodgers and NY baseball Giants couldn’t get it done. The football team that gets the proper stadium wins. “if you build it they will come”. Then TV deal which lets be honest is “the wild wild west”. Those MLS ratings are so bad in a era where live sports rule i think a Cosmos TV deal could actually beat MLS.

The Real insider

You are delusional the cosmos getting a TV deal?
Who is going to give a minor league team a TV deal? They draw 3K to their games who the hell is going to watch on TV?

If it was not for the MLS there would be no American Soccer league.

The NASL is a joke playing in crap stadium with no fans, no TV, No media Coverage.

Get real.

ty

So what was the ratings on the MLS? crap. MLS only exists because it expands with a 100 +mil buy in. Yet NYFC still doesn’t have a stadium. Miami and Chivas folded now look, they re-branded the same cities with different names. Pyramid scheme.

uhmm, the Cosmos and NASL have a tv deal already. Do you have any clue whatsoever?

slowleftarm

Seems like the last thread of hope of Cosmos fans is that a stadium will somehow overcome the poor product and minor league status of their team. A stadium is important but ultimately people go to the stadium to watch the game and if the game is a minor league one with MLS rejects playing against Louisville and Ottawa, the crowds will not come.

ty

MLS rejects WOW. You really think the MLS is worth watching? it’s crap. You guys let bottom of the barrel player in your league as so long as they come up with the 100 Million. It’s not like it’s England where they earn their spots. MLS looses money It’s what it does. Yet the salary cap is at 3 million

slowleftarm

Looks like “opencupfan”/angry bill has rebranded under the name “ty” – same redundant posts though.

BlogSmith

Um, the Ottawa Fury FC play at TD Place with a capacity of 24,000. So FIU Stadium wouldn’t be the largest NASL stadium by far, it would be 4,000 seats short.

So the worst sports city in the country* will have Miami FC, The Strikers, and Beckham FC?

What could possibly go wrong?

*apologies to the city of Atlanta

jimmy j

agree with Anonymous, slowleft and DanGerman – this has an empty seats look/feeling all over it!

MTF

Can’t get much emptier than Shuart Stadium during a Cosmos match. Unless of course they are playing the Red Bulls or NYCFC…then they get a crowd greater than 3,700.

Tom

Not quite, their home opener drew 12.5K and was vs NASL’s Tampa Bay Rowdies. Temp Hofstra stadium is a poor location as we know.

Tim D.

What’s the average ticket price in NASL /Cosmos games?

Tom

Good choice for Miami FC, the other 2 options being considered were even larger and FIU was really the only choice. They will however have to config the stadium to suit their expected attendance like Ottawa does with its 6400 soccer config in 24K TD Place. The use of tarps will be needed for sure and is a smart way to give better optics in a large stadium. Camera’s also need to shoot TO the main crowd unlike in Ottawa where they don’t.

Mitchell Torres

Yes Miami FC already has a supporters group named Dade Brigade. We will be present, loud and loyal. Miami FC is owned and run by people who grew up as fans of the game and are not just looking for a business venture. They are committed to winning and the fans.

hey tom, the cosmos got more in their opening night b/c of bobblehead night and Pele/Beckenbauer were there, that wears off after 1 game.

and in terms of Mr. “#OneClubOneVoice” here, this is already the 2nd team in the market, and the big 3rd one is coming…

REAL OpenCupFan Knows mls fans are Suckers

I’m getting sick and tired of people pointing out that #bushleaguemls is a pyramid scheme!
.
The real reason for its success is USSF gives $ money earned by the USNTs to #bushleaguemls
.
Support your local independent soccer clubs!

The trolls pump up an article about a Miami NASL team to 35 comments, and don’t bother to comment on the articles about the teams they are allegedly fans of. I think it’s official, they’re all Cosmos fans!

jimmy j

ok Leo, too bad none of these cosmos “fans” show up to the games, guess its similar to all the “fans” they have in brazil, cuba and Sweden – not doing them much good…

No they don’t show up. All we have is a winning team, a proper club, and about 3,000 die hard fans. While the MLS playoffs article has been up for over 244 hours, it has 4 comments. Somehow, a story about a proposed NASL team in Miami brings out the so-called fans of RBNY and NYCFC.

Give me a club and 3,000 of my fellow Cosmos fans any day over the plastic cross marketing franchise schemes of the other two pro team and their “fans”.

slowleftarm

That’s because Hempstead Cosmos and NASL are so easy to make fun of. It’s fun to mock delusions of grandeur. The second an MLS team arrives in Miami most of the fans who go to Miami FC will stop going. Miami is a terrible sports city yet NASL apparently thinks it will support two soccer teams. That’s why NASL’s strategy is so dumb. Go to markets where they don’t have soccer.